


things you said (when you thought i was asleep)

by gabolange



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 07:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: Jack and Mac have a conversation while Phryne recuperates from an injury.Set loosely in the same universe asWhen the Long Trick's Over.





	things you said (when you thought i was asleep)

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the prompt "things you said when you thought I was asleep." Originally posted June 7, 2019.
> 
> No beta, any errors are my own.

***

Phryne wakes. Her head is still pounding. She’s heard people say that having a concussion is like having your head packed with cotton wool, muted to the outside world, but clearly those people have never had a concussion. Her ears ring and her stomach rolls and her head bloody hurts where that stupid man had hit her. With a pipe! How dare he.

She feels terrible. If she stays still and keeps her eyes closed...

Mac had consented to let her come home from hospital, and then to sleep, but only if someone stayed with her. She had been too tired to argue. Now, as she tries to block out the world around her--the duvet she loves is scratching her arm and the bed is too warm, but to move would be to invite disaster--voices filter from the side of the room.

Mac’s clear alto, Jack’s soft tenor, both rising in emphasis only to quiet swiftly when they remember their patient. Phryne strains to hear.

“Don’t ask me,” Mac is saying. “The only time I ever lived with someone--a friend, I’m sure you understand--it went badly and lasted six weeks. She went home to Adelaide and I never heard from her again.”

Jack snorts. “All the other young lady’s fault?” he asks.

“Oh, absolutely,” she says, drier than her whisky. “I was the picture of domestic tranquility.” There is a long pause between them before Mac continues. “But you were married,” she says. “You know how it would work.”

Phryne hasn’t opened her eyes, but she can imagine Jack’s half-nod, the tilt of his head that acknowledges a fact he would prefer not to address. He has also, apparently, declined to mention to her that he is considering--what? Asking to move in to the house? To be her--whatever they are to each other--but to do it here, at her table and in her bed every day instead of just most?

It would be complicated. Her head hurts.

“Well,” Jack says, “I was a different man then.”

She can’t handle this. Tomorrow, or next week, ors sometime when she when she doesn’t feel like she is going to vomit on the carpet, she will take stock of Jack’s newfound interest in changing address and his peculiar willingness to share his thoughts on the matter with Mac.

Phryne pushes herself up in bed with a groan, and both her companions startle. Mac sets her drink down with a thud, and Jack rises swiftly. “Here,” he says. “Let me help you.” He crosses the room and slides an arm behind her back, and Phryne hates that she is grateful for the assistance. Jack is warm and present, the way he always is, the way she likes him. 

She peers up at her lover and then glances over to her best friend. “When,” Phryne asks as archly as she can, “did you two become such good friends?”

***


End file.
